Tuesday, July 17, 2012

One nice feature of Kindle ebooks, such as my own The Burial of Jesus: What Does History Have to Do with Faith?, is the fact that data can be collected about what readers highlight in the text. Amazon shares such information anonymously on the book's page.
Here are the three most popularly highlighted quotes from that book:

For some, religion is about confidently knowing; for others, it is about meekly acknowledging the inadequacy of our human knowledge.

it was, in fact, primarily the Romans who wanted Jesus apprehended, and the Jewish authorities were taking preemptive action to hand Jesus over to them, lest the Romans send their troops in and there be more bloodshed and loss of life.

The Bible also challenges those who believe in God to be open to new information, to new experiences, even though such new data may require that one revise one’s theology and indeed one’s whole worldview.

I'm also interested to hear from readers of Kindle ebooks about this feature. How does the fact that books now read you, and not just vice versa, affect the way you read, if at all? And how do you feel about the way such technology is automatically turning reading into a communal process?

The price on Amazon.com is $2.99, and this is indeed a revised and improved edition, and so even if you previously purchased the first edition of The Burial of Jesus you will presumably still have an interest in this one.

I'll be getting in touch with some other bloggers about reviewing the book, and there will be some op-eds and videos that I'll be writing/recording in the coming days and weeks, on topics that the book touches on. If you are a blogger interested in the possibility of reviewing the book, do get in touch via e-mail or some other means of private messaging to indicate your interest, and let me know your daily pageview statistics.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

When the relevant volume of the Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception becomes available in the not-too-distant future, part of the article on "Burial of Jesus" was contributed by me. I have not read the other sections of the article, and so am looking forward to reading them, in addition to having my own contribution made available.

The Gospel of Mark, when not read through the lens of later Gospels, suggests that Jesus was not given an honorable burial: Jesus is buried in accordance with the Law and placed in "a tomb," without anointing or other niceties that were the norm when someone was buried honorably by their family. The use of a linen shroud may suggest that it was possible to be buried even more dishonorably - but not much (Nahum ben Yehuda has a collection of rabbinic references to burial shrouds).

A new article in The Bible and Interpretation by Eldad Keynan (HT Jim West) the customs of Jewish burial in the time of Jesus are explained. In addition, we get the important information that "the tomb beneath the Holy Sepulcher has no niches but only a shelf, and it is smaller compared to regular family tombs." This leads Keynan to suggest that this was probably the site used by the Jerusalem court for burial of criminals. It was used for preliminary burial, not being intended for final burial.

It is striking that the traditional site for the burial of Jesus (hidden for a while by a temple of Aphrodite) and the details of Mark's Gospel (obscured or even contradicted by later authors) converge in agreement on this point.